As much as we'd like to banish "Women in Gaming" panels to the depths of our historic archives, there is still value in addressing the fact that being there are challenges for women at the gaming table that different than those faced by our male counterparts. This panel will talk about the ways women have always contributed to gaming, and how to handle some of the more nuanced situations that still come up.

From the implicit imperialism of steampunk to the complicated controversy of HBO's Confederate, it seems like alternate history is often fraught with problems. We provide you with techniques and ideas for writing, designing, and playing with historical and alternate historical themes in ways that are positive, inclusive, respectful, and productive.

Games can obviously be political and create empathy, but can they be journalism? Can they create change, spur activism, prompt meaningful dialog? What does it take to make a game with a contemporary theme or focused on an important issue - and what can go wrong?

This panel is all about re-evaluating the real diversity in historical settings, the difficulties of researching for historical non-western, non-white events and eras, especially those that feature women. It serves to discuss both larp design, and tabletop design, and is well worth a listen.

From the Ramayana to Romeo and Juliet, love and passion are at the heart of some of the most timeless stories ever told. So, how do we explore these themes in roleplaying games? How do we as players and GMs help each other have fun and stay safe? What systems bring sex and romance to the forefront? What’s that thing larpers are doing with their hands? Your panelists will answer all these questions, and many more.

This roundtable will focus on how to design and run games from an intersectional feminist standpoint. We will discuss different ways a game can be intersectional including: mechanics, characters, artwork, and more. Drawing on concrete examples from panelists about their own design process, as well as games that have influenced them, we will offer suggestions for designing intersectional games. We will also give some examples of how to make pre-existing games and systems more intersectional. Topics included in the discussion will be: how to fail forward, how to be a good ally, and how to respectfully write about marginalized groups when coming from a position of privilege

Games are part of our cultures, and the rules we create reflect our own backgrounds. In this roundtable, we explore how mechanics can reflect and/or interrogate culture. How can mechanics explore other people’s experiences? What assumptions do we bring to the game-design table?

Roleplaying games offer a fantastic window into the lives of others, and let us see the world through different eyes. This panel, sponsored by the Indie Game Developer Network, will discuss some of these games that bring diverse voices and creators to the forefront.

Can a game’s mechanics influence player behavior? Evidence – from XP-grubbing to sophisticated and subtle systems for using player agency to adjust real-world habits – suggests it can. Join Jason Morningstar and John Stavropoulos for a stimulating and perhaps surprising discussion on this topic. Bring your own examples to share!

The worst thing that can happen to you in a horror game is either that you die, or that you lose your mind. In games that focus on a world “gone mad”, how do we support real people living with mental illness through our game development? This panel will focus on revisiting systems like sanity points, and discuss how to address breaks with reality and surviving the very worst that horror has to throw at the world without treating mental illness as a comedic happenstance, or as something to be dismissed.